welcome to the blog of my life where i will be giving my views on anything to everything

What it means to be a young coloured womxn

This week I have started a new chapter in my life and i have begun lecturing and my week’s topic is race. My thoughts for this blog is not directly linked to my topic of DECOLONISING THE MIND. But rather my own experiences of race and what it means to be a young coloured womxn today.

My name is Nadine Amy Wilson; I am 21 years old and was born and bred in Cape Town. I am a coloured womxn with a coloured family and I am proud of my race. As a young coloured womxn, it is very difficult to establish oneself, as there are so many stereotypes with being coloured from the Cape. Yes, my family history lies in the Cape Flats and I am proud of that, I grew up in the streets of Steenberg and Lavender hill playing in the parks, running away, and hiding when the gunshots went off. Gangsterism is real in Cape Town along with drug and alcohol abuse. In my family, I have alcoholics, some of my cousins were part of gangs and had to pay the price dearly when they left and had to go to Pollsmoor prison. As much as there are the negative stereotypes of coloured people, with no front teeth and who only speak in numbers and kombuis Afrikaans. That is a generalisation and not all of that is true.

There are so many misconceptions about the race I call my own. Yes, coloured people do have the tendency to pull out their front teeth-but have you ever asked them why; I have and the answers vary. From wanting to whistle better and for wanting to easily eat food. There are so many pleasant memories, which surpass the negative stereotypes, and memories, which have happened in the past.Like going to St James beach day on Boxing Day or New Year’s Day and meeting up with people who you have not seen in years. You get to see all your cousins and your mothers-aunties-grandchild who you used to hang out with when you were five. You remember going to buy koeksisters on a Sunday from the Muslim aunty across the street, while your grandmother scolds at you because that was the money you were meant to throw in the church collection box.

I am proud to be a young coloured womxn, but that is not all that I am. I am an aspiring feminist, writer and journalist. I am a hopeless romantic, I strongly believe in optimism, and I always strive to see the world in a way better than what it truly is. Instead of focusing on the negatives particularly in Cape Town, I chose to see the world in a better light. I look at the nature, the beaches and Table Mountain. I see the Kaapse kloppse in their colourful uniforms singing, “Welcome to Cape Town, let’s see you smiling, put on your dancing shoes. Cape Town welcomes you!”

I want to be a journalist because I have a little bit of ‘save the world in me’. I aspire to change the way that people see journalists and I actually want to write pieces that can make a good change. I want people to see the positives in life as opposed to constantly focusing on the negatives. Moreover, if I do happen to write something negative it is because I want to bring out a positive change. I live, breath and write journalism to make people see things better and so that I can prove to the coloured community and give them hope that we are more. We are Wade Van Niekerk, Tatum Keshwar, Taliep Pietersen, David Kramer and Nadine Wilson-we are more.